The Boston Celtics are still alive against the New York Knicks. The Celtics pulled away to win Game 5, 127-102, on Wednesday night without star forward Jayson Tatum. The Knicks still lead the series, 3-2, and will have another chance to move to the Eastern Conference finals in Friday's Game 6.
Derrick White scored a game-high 34 points and Jaylen Brown added 26 as the Celtics used a strong third quarter to run away with the win. Tatum tore his Achilles in Monday's Game 4 and will miss the remainder of this playoff run and potentially all of next season.
Boston did not blow a double-digit lead this time thanks to shooting 52.4% from the field and 44.9% from 3-point range. The Celtics got a little bit from everyone, but one of the biggest standouts was Luke Kornet off the bench, who had 10 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks.
Josh Hart led the Knicks with 24 points. Jalen Brunson scored 22 points on 7-of-17 shooting but fouled out in the fourth quarter.
The Knicks will now try to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 2000 on Friday. The Celtics, meanwhile, are trying to avoid becoming the sixth straight reigning NBA champion to get knocked out in the second round or earlier. No defending champion has made it beyond the second round since the Warriors in 2019.
The Luke Kornet game
It's been a whirlwind 48 hours for the Celtics. Not only were they unable to keep a late lead in Game 4 to even up the series, but they lost Tatum for the foreseeable future. It meant Boston's chances of winning Game 5 were slim, as they'd need to find production from somewhere else without their franchise forward. That's where Kornet came in with a cape. The 7-foot center was a plus-20 in the 28 minutes he played Wednesday night, finishing with 10 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks.
Kornet's effort on both ends of the floor was infectious for a Celtics team that desperately needed a spark. He was diving for loose balls, flying around the court and timing blocks perfectly. He was especially important as Kristaps Porzingis was essentially a non-factor and played just 12 minutes, all of which came in the first half.
Kornet became the X-factor for the Celtics, and was a large reason they won Game 5. With Porzingis struggling in this series, it will be interesting to see if coach Joe Mazzulla goes to Kornet more in Game 6. He brought the kind of intensity and energy the Celtics need to play with for the rest of the series if they have any hope of advancing.
A missed opportunity by the Knicks
This game was tied at halftime, all the Knicks needed to do was keep this thing close and finish the Celtics off. This was a dispirited Boston team after losing Tatum, so the momentum was on New York's side to close this out. And yet in the second half, OG Anunoby and Mikal Bridges combined for three points, Karl-Anthony Towns was mostly uninvolved, and Brunson fouled out with seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. As a team, the Knicks shot just 29.4% from the field and 30.8% from 3-point range. Seven of their 10 turnovers came in the second half, and the offense fell stagnant, part of which was credit to Boston's offense.
Defensively it was worse. It just looked like the Knicks were unprepared for how Boston was going to play. The Celtics were getting out into transition with ease, had great ball movement with little defensive pressure and had no issue getting the looks they wanted all night.
"I think it's two-fold," Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said of his team's difficulty with defending in transition. "I think it's the commitment to sprint back, and then communicate to make sure that we understand what's going on. We can't have any personal dilemmas of, if you're missing a shot or it's not going well for you offensively that you're jogging back. You got to sprint back, you got to communicate, and we got to be matched up. If one guy's slow, you're going to give him an open shot, and you can't do that against this team."
It's not all doom and gloom, Hart's 3-point shooting (5 of 9) was an encouraging sign as he's shooting just 29.4% from deep in this series. But outside of that, it was a pretty disappointing effort from a team that had a chance to advance to the conference finals for the first time since 2000.
Another chance on Friday
Fortunately, the Knicks have another shot to close this thing out on Friday, and luckily they get to do it in front of their home crowd. But it's going to take a far greater performance than the one they gave on Wednesday. It means Brunson can't foul out, or pick up five fouls in the third quarter alone. He has to be smarter than that. The Knicks are going to need more production from one -- or both -- of Anunoby and Bridges. The defense needs to be tighter, they need to not settle for bad shots and limit the turnovers.
All of that is easier said than done. And while the Celtics are shorthanded, they're still not a team you want to underestimate. Boston proved it can win without Tatum, but can it win two more games to pull off what would be a crazy comeback? The chances are low, but if there were a team to do it, this Celtics team -- even without Tatum -- would be the one to pull it off.
